


Twisted Braids

by herbiecide



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Not gonna spoil the plot today, may contain instances of spoken word
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-21 00:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30013143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbiecide/pseuds/herbiecide
Summary: Local hermit-crab in training Benji is well on his way to a life of video games and wizardry. But when he is introduced into a normal-looking club, four lovely girls tangle themselves around him, wrapping him up in a warm cocoon of love. How long can this last before it burns down in a mess of broken daydreams?Now featuring a live epilogue of all my thoughts making this! My poor brain...





	1. Loop Breaking

*door opens*

*door closes*

Footsteps are heard in a small little basin. The basin leads to a single staircase, stuffed to the brim with paintings.

The mysterious figure walks up the stairs for a few seconds, but seemingly falls victim to the mysterious atmosphere, and turns to leave. It jumps to leave this set of stairs as fast- wait, what the hell is it doing? That’s not even supposed to be-

“Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Yah-Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-yahoo!”

...

“Ya-woohoo!” *bonk*

*♬Bowser’s Road ♬ begins to play*

This musical track, the theme of the final Bowser stage in Super Mario 64, is a powerful piece. Ones who hear it for the first time feel the ominous aura radiating from it. But this particular player has lost that feeling a long, long time ago.

You see, this is not the first rodeo he has had with Bowser. Or even this music. He has went through this dance thousands upon thousands of times, so much so that the theme is almost certainly burned into his memory. The bombastic cry of;

“ **SO LONG GA-”** *cough cough* Uhhhh… I mean;

“ **SO LONG KING BOWSER!”**

-has become just another saying in the mountain of sayings that he has heard this plumber make during their shared time on Earth. But some unexplainable thing has kept this mysterious player coming back for more. Playing this game normally has become unfulfilling now, the high no longer strong enough.

So he finds another drug. But this one is not the feeling of exploration that the average person has, the one that has been milked until it is drier than the Sahara Desert. This one is the feeling of control. He finds a glitch that enables him to completely discard the original intentions of the developers, and allows him to write his own path.

Stars that were long and boring to grind through can now be skipped, and, instead of being locked behind an artificial number, the game can now be beaten with just about any combination he can think of.

But even this drug is beginning to fail him. Even the magic of BLJ has its limits.

One can not have less than zero of something. And Benji, our protagonist, who, thanks to the massive exploitation of a broken world, knows that fact all too well. One can only go so far in a virtual world; there are things that simply can never happen in this game. He yearns for something new. Something different. But also familiar. He doesn’t want to stray too far out of his comfort zone, after all.

He crawls through the massive, massive landfill that is the internet, searching for the magic pill. After a troublesome tussle with some terrible ads, he finds:

_Super Mario 74!_

_Completely new game!_

_150 stars!_

_Harder than the original!_

_Download now!_

_<https://sm64romhacks.com/hacks/super_mario_74/> _

Looks like the perfect place to start. He downloads it in a flash, getting the ROM patched, and the game started  up in mere moments.  The title screen flashes, and for a brief moment nothing seems different. Then he selects  File A. And instantly, it is like someone hit the reset button.

Everything is new. That feeling of newness from all those years ago finally returns. And it overwhelms Benji like a tsunami of joy. Finally, he is free from the monotony! The original game is now shuffled around into a corner, to lay unplayed, unused, and untouched for the rest of time.

But this Mario cartridge need not worry, for something else also rests in this corner, a thing that has  sat here in agony for many, many months. If there was an expert on being cast away by Benji, this would be it.

Or rather,  she  would be it. Benji’s penchant for discarding is not limited to merely the realm of gaming.  The magnum opus of  faded dreams stands at a massive 5’2, completely dwarfing the  3 inches that the Mario 64 cartridge takes up. Her  coral pink  hair is  nearly as bright as the sun,  a massive contrast to the boring, generic grey of the lowly cartridge.  But there is one thing that the cartridge has that this girl will never have…

**Lack of emotions.**

And boy, does she wish that she could be like that. Under that bubbly personality of hers, down in the deepest reaches of her existence, her heart lays bare, keeping everything  working. Although the rest of her exudes a feeling of pure happiness that can be seen from miles and miles away, here the warm feelings  are  severely faded. And the only evidence of this loss is one lonely little hairline fracture.

To  cause a fracture like that in someone like her takes some real dedication of the worst kind. And there is only one person in her life that has that kind of dedication…  It’s a shame that things turned out this way.

To think how  life used to be so, so different…

\------

_4 years ago…_

_The Doki Doki amusement park is officially having its grand opening! Ride the Insane Inferno, the scariest rollercoaster in the entire world! With the highest quality pizza, an endless supply of cotton candy, and over 15 different games, this oasis of fun will be sure to keep any child entertained for hours!_

An arrow is on the end of this sign, seemingly pointing to a pair of freshly-minted teenagers, hopelessly absorbed in the scenery.

One half of this pair notices the smell of one of those aforementioned attractions and immediately gets locked into tunnel-vision. She runs for it with the speed of a cheetah that has found its prey.

“Sayori! Wait up!”

Benji trails behind, but even his best efforts can’t catch her. Luckily he knows just where she has gone, and quickly sniffs her out. Wouldn’t you know it, it’s the cotton candy station! And she’s already got three cones full of it. It’s too late to get out of this now…

Benji sighs and asks for one order of grape cotton candy. The man behind the counter is all to happy to deliver, knowing Benji’s relation to the new #1 customer in the making.

“Here you are sir! Don’t you dare eat it too fast!”

He is almost tempted to take out this sugary treat whole after that comment. Too bad he doesn’t know how to fit it all. But a resident expert just happens to be sitting at a nearby table!

She eats one of her strawberry-flavored cones whole. Yep, that’s definitely Sayori. He sits down next to her as she begins to burrow into her second one.

“Sayori! Your parents said you weren’t supposed to spend all your money on cotton candy!”

“I didn’t!”

Sayori then shows 15 dollars that remain in her pocket. Guess her parents prepared for this situation, eh? But that still doesn’t completely erase his disapproval from Benji’s face.

She notices. Her face morphs into a pout, one that rivals the cutest of puppies.

“Please don’t look at me like that! Are you mad at me?”

Her face seems to almost wait for the confirmation. But that pout is so, so strong…

He can’t stay mad at her. His face flips back into its usual gentle smile.

“..No, I’m not mad.” Benji makes sure that Sayori sees his happy face as he goes to eat more cotton candy. Like magic, Sayori is instantly turned into a bouncing ball of pure, concentrated glee. She jumps up and hugs him.

“I knew you wouldn’t be mad! Ehehe~”

Oh Sayori… Benji is essentially forced to hug her back. But it’s not that bad, in all honesty. He basically just lets it happen. Now’s a good time to finish up that cotton candy… He only gets two bites in when she suddenly breaks the hug and bolts again. He looks over to see a- of course she’s buying more cotton candy. God dammit! Didn’t she ha-

They’re gone. How did she even eat them? Benji doesn’t get any time to think about that before Sayori returns with two more cones, one already half-eaten.

“I didn’t want you to eat without me!”

On the outside he sighs in annoyance, but on the inside, a warm, happy feeling flickers within him. She can’t see that, right? No way.

After a long battle with the cotton-candy monster, Sayori finally claims victory and leaves, this time at a much more normal pace. Benji could really get used to this. He can take in the scenery, look at some rides, eye up some buttered popcorn…

And suddenly, he feels a pull. Not expecting it, he is reduced to flopping around like a fish caught on a hook, with no control over where he goes. He is dragged halfway across the park, drawing a few stares as he goes, but eventually, the pull stops.

But he doesn’t.

He bumps straight into Sayori, knocking both of them over onto the dirt. Benji, having only just recently been freed from the confines of fishdom, sighs in annoyance. Sayori on the other hand acts like nothing is wrong, as she gets up and gestures toward a set of teacups.

The Teacup ride? Ugggghhhh… His thoughts almost breach the confines of his brain, but then he sees the sheer joy that beams from Sayori’s face. Just imagine the pout that would come if he said no to her… He doesn’t even let that thought finish.

“Ok, we’ll go on the teacup ride!” He pays the fees and off they go in a teacup.

He sees two other couples on his particular section, one with both people looking as happy as Sayori is, and the other eerily similar to his situation, with the man being annoyed, and the woman beaming with energy. At least he has a brother-in-arms for this one, right? Maybe this won’t be so BAAAAAAAAAD!

The teacup revs up to really high speeds. Benji is shocked, but that quickly wears off. It isn’t a total bore… and Sayori is laughing, looking like she is having the time of her life… That annoyance begins to slowly recede from his mind.

The teacup spins at its maximum velocity, so fast that Sayori begins to look more than a little queasy… Those 5 cotton-candy cones sure are catching up to her...

To avoid a massive accident, Benji does the only thing he can: hugging her. This better bring that queasiness down, even the ball of happiness herself would not like the smell of vomit…

The warmth from the hug is as strong as ever, but the fear of bodily regurgitation looms large. The ride finally begins to slow down after several minutes of high speed, and both parties escape without a single putrid rainbow incident.

Sayori leaves from the ride, so happy that she is laughing as if she took multiple gigantic sniffs of laughing gas. And if it was cotton-candy flavored, she probably would actually do that…

Benji is tired. He hasn’t even gotten to choose a single attraction yet! The day is not as young as it once was, but there is still time for at least a couple more rides. And he is going to make the most of it. He doesn’t even let Sayori’s eyes get a chance to wander before he drags her over toward the Insane Inferno.

The line here is thankfully not too long. Just a few minutes of waiting…

While Sayori remains on her high, he waits through, watching the few people in front of him get on the coaster and start moving. Man that does look cool. The fiery red aesthetic, the trip over in the flaming pirate ship, the peaks and valleys that the coaster tears through like it is nothing… He can just imagine the G-forces right now, how good they are gonna feel washing ov-

“Hey! Stop daydreaming so we can check your height!”

Rude! But whatever, it has to be done. The maximum is 4’8”, and Benji, standing 5’1”, easily clears this bar. Sayori, still in some level of dreamland, is put up to the measuring stick. And her bright hair just barely flutters above the bar.

The guy measuring really should deny her, but he only makes $10 an hour, so he’s more than a little lenient on this kind of thing…

“You both pass. Now hurry up and get on the ride.“

Benji attempts to pull Sayori behind her on the ride, but she remains stuck in place. He looks back and sees that the happiness high that she was on earlier is now completely gone, replaced with an expression of a modest level of fear.

“C’mon Sayori, let’s go! It’s not that scary!”

But she doesn’t move. There’s only one thing that he can do now to salvage this… good old-fashioned bribery. He leans down and gently whispers into her ear;

“Look, I’ll hold your hand, ok? I promise with all of my heart that nothing will hurt you. And I’ll buy you more cotton candy after this. Now will you come with me on this ride?”

After processing this, Sayori’s legs seem to magically pop unstuck, and she takes his hand, ready to be lead onto the ride. The gesture shoots out smiles in every direction, with almost everyone in the line smiling for one reason or another. Even the attendant is smiling. It’s certainly better than dealing with a whiner, that’s for sure.

The coaster fills up, and the button is pressed. The safety bars come down. Benji tries to put both hands on this bar, but one seems to be stuck. He looks over at Sayori, and the same thing is going on at her seat. But why can-

Oh wait. Duh! How could he forget so quickly! And they are stuck like superglue.

He can barely start to lament his lost arm before the ride starts to chug up the hill.

With every click of the wheels, the intertwined hands grow tighter and tighter. Halfway up, it’s as tight as a shirt that barely fits. By the time they make it up to the very, very top, it’s tighter than a blood pressure cuff filled to the max with air. It’s almost to the point of pain.

Those few seconds it spends at the top are some of the most agonizing that Benji has ever had to face. The tight grip and steep, steep drop cause a whirlwind of conflicting emotions in his mind. But it is all forced away once the ride starts to go…

In an instant, the G-forces and speed of this coaster brush away any emotions he once had, and they are now temporarily replaced with pure excitement. His free arm rises high into the air, perfectly channeling all of that excitement into his outstretched fingertips. Even Sayori’s death grip is beginning to release. Is this some sort of dream?

With every twist and turn, the grip lessens and lessens. She’s barely even holding on anymore during the pirate ship. And finally, as they enter the biggest drop of all, a new scream of happiness makes itself known among the rainbow of riders.

Benji’s brain can not believe what it is hearing. Is that really…? His eyes snap over to her and see a sight that he thought would be impossible.

One bubbly, coral pink ball is screaming in joy with two hands in the air. There’s no way in hell that he’s going to get outshined by her.

So his other arm rises up alongside, winning the joy battle solely thanks to the height differential.

Sayori and Benji share expressions of glee for the rest of the ride. Unfortunately, this beautiful mix of jubilation and awesomeness is very short-lived, as only a few seconds pass before the coaster screeches to a stop.

Everyone gets off the ride. As they go through the outbound exit, a different attendant hands them all a picture, showing off their hopefully happy faces as they were traversing hell’s maze.

The people in front of them sure look happy to see those photos. They are the last two people in this line. Sayori goes up first, with her hand rushing to grab the laminated sight. Benji is up now to get his, but as he goes to grab it he sees her suddenly jump several inches in the air.

She rushes over as he is forced to stuff his photo in his pocket.

“Benji look!!! Look!!! Look how happy we are!”

He sees it and even he is forced to do a double take. That’s got to be the brightest smile that he’s ever seen. From either him or Sayori.

He definitely going to this park again, that’s for sure…

“Ehehe~! C’mon Benji, let’s go get that cotton candy you promised me!”

And he is thrown back into fish world. But if you look closely, you could see a small smile written on his face…

\---end flashback---

Sayori holds the picture from that day in her little hands. Those thoughts are swimming in her mind, but along with them comes a painful reminder of what could have been… This was the peak of their friendship, as after only two or three trips he stopped coming to the park, and about 6 months ago he even stopped walking to school with her in the morning. He knows the Benji from that photo is still in there, even if it is buried under a Mount Everest of hermit crabs.

A storm brews in her mind, but one more glance at that happy picture solidifies her decision. Tomorrow, she is going to get Benji to join a club. Her club. Well not hers’ specifically, she is only vice president, but that’s just splitting hairs. Regardless, he is going to remove the shackles of isolation and make friends again. Even if it isn’t her, (although she hopes it is), it works all the same. She’s also got an ace up her sleeve, something that is almost guaranteed to get the ball rolling: cupcakes. One of Benji’s biggest weaknesses is a massive sweet tooth, almost as big as her own. And Natsuki is really, really good at baking.

With her plans solidified, and fresh with some hunger thanks to thinking about those goddamn cupcakes, she digs into her fridge and pulls out some chicken that has been prepared for her by her lovely parents. That piece of chicken, even though it is already dead, meets a quick death at the hands of a ravenous beacon of light. As her fingers are cleaned, and the last crumbs of spice fall into her mouth, she sets an alarm on her phone.

No oversleeping on this day.


	2. The Click of a Pen

A paper can not be folded more than 7 times, huh? That’s what they always say, anyway. But don’t tell that to her. Look, she’s about to disprove it right now! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… oh. Only six. But no matter, I’m sure, if she puts her mind to it, she can take the art of halving to new heights.

But this wasn’t just a hot moment of myth-busting. These hexa-folded pieces of paper have a place. Where? Now that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Can’t spoil the surprise. But mere sheets of paper are not worth noting. What is though, is the colored pictures that adorn every other page.

These pictures, filled in very carefully with only the most superior colored pencils, are a perfect foil to the otherwise boring, generic, assembly-line nature of a standard sheet of paper.

Instead of plain, ordinary, muted red lines, these pictures completely flip the script; They have vertical lines too! Oh, and bright, cheerful colors. Those are also there. And they sure are stunning. They show themselves off very well, even rivaling some of the greatest paintings in their ability to stand out among a crowd.

But this is only the tip of the large, lettuce-free iceberg. As if these beautiful works of art were not enough, there also exists a mechanical component to this piece. And she’s just putting it in now! Her delicate fingers fiddle with the gears, as her mind turns about on where exactly to put this gear. The amount of thought that is being put into this one decision puts even Socrates to shame. But there’s only so many hours in a day, and tomorrow is coming! She has a guest. A very special guest.

And for that guest to receive the highest level of enjoyment, that gear has to be put down. Her hands cease their fiddling and suddenly enter a robotic trance. The movements are as small and precise as a silicon transistor, as the gear is placed among its brethren in the notebook. This is a joyous occasion, but there is not a single microsecond to celebrate before she picks up another, and repeats the dance all over again.

Time slows to a crawl as the pile of gears ever so gradually reduces. Before long, the gearmaster stops for a moment to check her work. A regular pencil just barely grazes the paper, leaving a mark almost invisible to the naked eye. But eyesight is not what is being tested here. What she’s looking for is something much, much more outward. The pencil flows with the grace of a swan as the letters begin to come out. Surprisingly, it’s not a cursive writing style, but something much less historically influenced. Something more appropriate for a middle school class. But that doesn’t distract from the quality, oh no no no. The words are still drawn with excellent poise that would completely blow away someone less developed like that.

After about 30 seconds of bliss, the graphite finally gets a break. But as the graphite scurries back out of the frame, its cousin, the colored graphite from earlier, makes a bombastic entrance. Calling the colorful drawings a picture was inaccurate, as a picture can not move.

What brings this drawing into a higher plane is its movement. It jumps about 2 inches up on the Y axis, ascending through the lined paper like it is nothing. It would be a perfect parabola too, if not for the gears forcing it to be stuck in one patch of horizontal space. But right as it is about to reach its peak height, a third party joins the fray. But this one has no relation to the others. It does not come from the carbonic fields that birth the utilitarian graphite, nor does it come from the fiber strings that align to make the paper. In fact, the usual laws that govern the nature and movement of “stuff” don’t apply to it.

For this final piece is one digital sound sample of a piano key, specifically the relatively high G6.

Her face lights up like a Christmas tree. It works! I mean, of course it does, but even Olympians are satisfied when they run a good 100m, so what’s wrong with a bit of bragging?

That thought is only fleeting, as she quickly refocuses on completing this work. With every gear that gets slotted in, her mind gradually eases. This is going to work to perfection. Don’t stress out too much…

The second of the four groups are done. Another extensive test follows, and unsurprisingly, it passes with flying colors. That gear pile is really shrinking now. And, more importantly, so is the time spent fitting everything together. The first set of pictures, the most important ones by miles, took hours upon hours to finish. But now, the rest are flying by.

Before she knows it, the gear pile has completely vanished. Her mind was so caught up in the process that she grabs at air, her eyes shooting up when her hands come up empty. She looks down and sees no gears. A quick check of the impromptu workbench (which, in reality, is just a table) returns zero results.

Even an almost unnaturally precise scan of the entire room fails to return anything. Only then, after all of that searching, does she finally accept the reality that she had been swimming in for the past few minutes.

**It is done.**

She goes through one last quick test, almost daring the four artworks to deviate from their purposefully designed path. None of them do. Thankfully for them, because if any had, they would’ve had to face the wrath of a  tired,  yet determined goddess of a mechanic. But let’s not think about that. Those thoughts are reserved for someone special. 

With the status of the notebook confirmed to be 100% working, her hands finally can begin the journey backwards through the pages. Her thumb scrapes the edge s, slowing them down just enough to allow one a quick peek at them. They all look the same. Just as she is about to close the cover, a few strands of shiny brown hair, clearly tired of fighting gravity, float onto the paper. She thinks about removing it, but a rare thought comes to her mind before her hands can move: Why should she? It would be a nice little treat for the one who has the honor of opening this up again. And it would be a clever little nudge...

Hell, she should probably wrap it up for him at this point. All that’s missing is the wrapping paper and a cheap little tag. But none shall surround the edges for now. It would not be appropriate for someone like her to present something wrapped up like that, no matter how good the product inside is. It must stand on its own.

She puts it up on the table along with all the other club materials. And thus, everything is set up for the next chapter to be written… all that is left is one last click of a pen. But that’s for tomorrow.

Roll credits!

\------

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

The snooze button is gently **HAMMERED** , almost breaking into pieces. Yep, it’s 6 AM. Time for school once again. The target of all this beeping finally awakens from his long slumber, and sits up on his bed.

“Yay… more school…”

Benji’s school life is not a particularly fun one. The average day usually consists of going to some boring classes, spending said classes either forcing himself to pay attention to the teacher, or, more often than not, failing to do so and instead thinking about things that he deems more important, such as Mario, whatever food the school is having for lunch that day, or even the occasional dream about his future.

Hell, having someone cute by his side, just sitting around, playing Mario and eating some of the nicest pizza this side of the continent is good enough for him. That’s the stuff. A part of his mind always screams at him to go out and get it, but it never wins the battle against the ever-present dual-headed monster of laziness and apathy.

Thinking about that comfortable life has already carried him through 3/4 of his morning routine, now only having to brush his teeth, take his lunch and get on to school.

That lunch sits where it always has, up on the granite countertop. His dad stands right behind, with a slight smile on his face.

“Here you are son. Don’t fall asleep in any classes today! Remember that the test in Math is coming up!”

“Thanks Dad…”

That tinge of annoyance at the end wipes that smile right off his face. It’s something that has been happening more and more this past year. 4 years ago, he would be happy to go to school, always grabbing the lunchbox with a pep in his step. But that pep hasn’t been seen for over a year. And it’s just gone down from there…

Benji’s always been a homebody kind of person, but these past few months are a new level of isolation. The outgoing Benji of old seems to have been squashed like a bug. The one that replaced it… how does he put this nicely… is a disaster. He can’t even remember the last time Sayori has been over. And even his grades are beginning to slip now. If this keeps up, it’s gonna be a heap of trouble. He’s tried and tried to nudge him out of his shell, but every attempt is met with a simple “I’ll try”, and nothing changes.

As Benji walks out of the house, he sighs loudly. God, someone please let down a rope for him… he better fucking climb it.

\----

The outside breeze makes a few hairs on Benji’s head stand on end. Not that he minds, as a nice cool breeze is one of the few things that beats the feeling of an air-conditioned room. He gets only a few steps out before a familiar color scheme takes him out of his reverie…

"Heeeeeeeyyy!!"

“Sayori! Nice to see you not oversleeping for once.”

“I don’t do it on purpose! I just get too caught up in my dreams!”

“Uh-huh, sure…”

She pouts a little bit, but that quickly gives way to more happiness. They both begin walking down the street toward the schoolhouse.

“Have you thought about joining any clubs?”

“Clubs? What clubs?” Just then he remembers hearing his homeroom teacher harp on about something like that.

Before Sayori can fill him in, he interjects with his newfound remembrance.

“Oh yeah, those clubs. Nah, I’m not really interested in any.”

“C’moooooon! You gotta get out of your shell! There’s gotta be something for you out there!”

“I like my shell a lot, thank you very much.”

“Pleeeease! You gotta socialize eventually! I don’t want my friend to become a hermit crab!”

“What’s wrong with hermit crabs?”

“Everything! No one can ever see their beauty!”

“Heh. Thanks for the compliment. But still no.”

The pout returns with a vengeance.

“C’mon Benji! At least go to one! The literature club has cupcakes…”

Benji’s mind does shift a bit at the mention of cupcakes. But it shifts right back over as it processes the whole “Literature” thing.

“I’m good on that. You know I’m not a bookworm.”

“Well whatever! Just promise me you’ll go to one. Pretty Please?”

Sayori’s expression shifts into a puppy face. If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed about Benji in these past 5 years, its a weakness to those.

“Alright, alright. I’ll go to one. I promise.”

“Yaay~!”

She’s now beaming more powerfully than a lighthouse. Even Benji is briefly blinded by it.

The rest of the walk goes by quick. Before anyone knows it, it’s already homeroom. Teacher’s yakking on about hyperbolas this time. **Joy**. Benji enters auto-pilot mode as the next few classes pass. Lunch finally comes in to break the monotony, this day’s food being pizza, some carrots, and a small cookie, so small that it looks pitiful by comparison.

He chomps it down, and the auto-pilot swiftly takes back control. Three more classes later, it’s 3:00, and classes are over.

“Oh! Looks like we won’t get to learn about telomeres today. Remember your homework!”

Benji sits at the desk, looking around for anything, anything at all to catch his eye. Other than the rest of the students leaving, there’s really not much around. Just outside the hall, there is a big board, meant to showcase all of the clubs that are available for a prospective student to join. Of course, he has never looked at said board before. No better time than the present, I suppose…

His eyes begin to comb the board for anything, **anything** that would even remotely interest him. Half of them are sports clubs. Apparently P.E. isn’t enough for these people. No way in hell he’s going for that, that sounds like a torture cell. Some other types are sprinkled throughout, including robotics, chess, checkers, and- wait, fight club?

Clearly someone never learned the rules of fight club.

That brief moment of mental stimulation now gone, he returns to scanning. 

_ There’s always anime club I guess... _

Before he can think about potentially dragging himself there, two hands cover his eyes. 

“Gueeeeess who!~”He’s got three guesses, and two of them are a floating, noncommitted pair of hands.

“Ok Sayori… what’s up.”

“Hurry up and decide on a club!”

“Hey, don’t rush me! You know I’m only doing this because I promised you!”

“You’ve been standing there staring at the thing for over five minutes! Remember, the literature club has cupcakes…”

Sayori then skips her way down, presumably toward the aforementioned club.

That extra mention of cupcakes works wonders on his blank slate of a mind, which is now just begging him to go down there and at least try the cupcakes. Eh, fuck it.

“Wait up Sayori!” Benji begins to rush over in her direction.

She deliberately slows down, waiting for him to catch up like a true gentlewoman should.

One walk upstairs later, he’s at the door of a room he has never seen. There isn’t even any markings on it either, the door is just as wooden as any other door. Before he can even blink Sayori forces the door open with more force than a battering ram.

“I found the new member!”

Benji pouts at the way she put that. He’s not a meatbag to show off!

But it’s too late for that now. Three pairs of eyes are now glued to him. And he’s never seen any of them.

Those three initial stares quickly split off into their own individual reactions: One of mild interest, one of someone clearly trying to hold in disgust, and one that looks like they just saw their favorite cartoon character for the very first time.

That last one reveals herself first, still keeping that happy expression.

”Hello Benji! Welcome to the club!”

The disgusted one’s facade shows a few more cracks.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Some silence fills in the void left by a certain someone…

”..I guess it’s nice to see you…”

She rushes away toward the back area. What’s gotten into her?

”Oh, she’s not used to new people joining like this. She’ll be back. Anyway, would you like to take your seat?”

Finally, something easy. He sits down next to a seat that is currently empty.

”So, the girl who just ran away from you is Natsuki, I’m Monika, and the one who has barely said anything so far is Yuri. I don’t think I need to explain the one next to you.”

Yuri jumps at the surprise call-out, but quickly recovers and starts on her spiel.

"Thank you, Monika. Hello there Benji. I hope we can have a fun time together.”

“I hope so too, Yuri. It’ll be a real pleasure to get to know you.”

She merely smiles and returns to her cave of silence.

“Don’t worry Benji, Nat is going to get the cupcakes real soon.”

“Only here for a cupcake, huh? Not a surprise. They’re worth the trip, I can assure you.”

Damn, these must be the cupcakes from heaven itself!

As if on cue, Natsuki arrives with a mysterious plate. What ever could it be? There’s **no way** it could be-

“Tada!”

Oh wow! It was the cupcakes! Who could have guessed! That’s the last words his sarcasm could give him before it was replaced with the smell of those frosting-laden treats. 

”Well! I can’t wait all day!”

All four of them immediately take one of the cupcakes. Natsuki sits down in that empty seat, at first beaming with joy.

And then she looks at Benji.

That beam instantly shuts down, replaced with that same look of disgust from earlier.

She does notice Benji twirl around that cupcake in his hands, and that look slowly turns into a questioning one.

“Well? What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing! I’m just admiring how good it looks.”

”W-Well don’t just stare at it! Eat it!”

Everyone else has already chomped into theirs, each with satisfied looks on their faces. He can’t stand being stared at by her any longer, so he takes the plunge. And holy shit.

An eruption of flavor overwhelms his taste buds, completely ruining the cookie from lunch.

Before he knows it, the entire thing is stuffed in his mouth and completely chewed through.

”I think he likes it.”

”Of course he does! It’s my cooking, after all!”

Benji wisely just nods in affirmation. Don’t want to risk pissing off this new god of sweets and be banned from enjoying them…

”See! I knew the cupcakes would work!”

She then immediately attacks her second cupcake.

Everyone else quickly find themselves doing the same. After a while, all the cupcakes are gone, and, after 20 minutes of general hang-out time. Monika finally gets around to doing actual literature-related buisness.

“Okay everyone! Now that we are finished with those excellent cupcakes, let’s fill our new member in about how this club operates. Every night, we write poems to share with the rest of the club. Don’t worry about length or anything, as we welcome all kinds of writing!”

Hmm… that’s not the worst thing, right? Even Benji can’t find too many excuses to stop himself for that one. But, stupidly, his mind tries anyway.

“But I don-”

“Not a problem! I have a notebook right here, just for you!”

She gets out a notebook that looks surprisingly thick and puts it right in front of Benji.

He is too shocked to really look through it, and just puts in inside his backpack for now.

Monika smiles. “See, that wasn’t too hard! I look forward to seeing your poem tomorrow!”

“Wait, already?”

“Of course! This club isn’t just for slacking and hanging out with cute girls!”

Way to nab the low hanging fruit, Monika…

“It’s okay Benji, it’s easier than you think it is. Trust me, I was scared too when getting told to write my first one.”

“Well it was easy for you! This guy probably doesn’t even know what a book is!”

The other three get a little frightened at Natsuki just attacking him like that. But Benji’s not so scared. He’s heard this all before…

“Relax, Nat. I’m sure he will be fine, and he will come in tomorrow with a great poem.”

Natsuki folds her arms in annoyance. The bell then rings, signifying the end of the club.

“Glad that’s over…” he whispers to himself. Just as he gets up, Sayori magnetizes to him like a moth does to a lamp.

“So, are you gonna join the club?”

He thinks for a moment. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it was, that’s for sure. And those cupcakes sure were good… And the work isn’t that hard… certainly better than the homework from science class…

“Fine, I’ll join the club.”

Sayori is probably the brightest she has been in years.

“Yaaaay! I knew you would enjoy it!”

She bolts out of the clubroom, with Benji flopping around like a fish. That walk home sure isn’t gonna be slow and steady...


	3. Live Epilogue

The title of this, “Twisted Braids”, was actually the third title that I had for this. I wish I could go into it more right now, but I don’t wanna spoil the plot. I will say that one of the two cancelled titles is mentioned in the first chapter.

Chapter 1:

MC’s name is Benji because of the speedrunner Benji64. Yes, that is the sole reason for his name. I even tried to look up some Japanese names like in other Doki Doki fics, but none were particularly inspiring, and then I remembered Benji, and it was done. SM64 is going to be a running theme throughout this entire fic, because I like SM64, and its related romhacks. I know you might complain “it doesn’t make any sense!” to which I say, so?

Paraphrasing the words of the great Jon Bois:

“We have all the normal Doki Doki fics we could ever want. Surely, every 100,000 fics or so, you can find room for one, pointless, silly, juvenile farce.”

**Welcome to the farce swamp.**

That sentence up there is also a reference. Have fun with that one.

The rollercoaster is named “Insane Inferno” as a reference to the final stage in Super Mario 64: Master’s Challenge, an extremely hard romhack of the original game. I was going to put some sort of RWBY reference here as a nod to my earlier ~~dumpster fire~~ [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29245824/chapters/71812683) in that universe, but could find nothing suitable.

Since there is basically nothing to base off of for these initial experiences, I just went with a generic “getting over rollercoaster fear” thing. I don’t really have this kind of experience in real life, so I just put what sounded right, without making it so fluffy that I was constantly cringing. And I made Sayori eat cotton candy as a nod to, but also a deliberate avoidance of the whole cinnamon bun idea. I don’t really subscribe to that kinda thing.

Of course I have to put at least one “Ehehe~” in there. It took some effort to type that though.

I struggled a bit with what I wanted to do with them as they got up from the dirt, as I had many choices, all with their own connotations… In the end I went neutral.

The other two couples on the teacup ride could have been some really interesting hinting… It could have been a nod toward one of the stupider endings to this I was planning out. But nah.

The “traversing hell’s maze” was a reference to the name of Star 1 in Insane Inferno, “Warm-Up in Hell’s Maze”.

I did not expect this flashback alone to be 2,000 words when I started writing it. But I’m glad it was, because it makes me look good at writing, even though I’m actually not.

As I was finishing this chapter up, I looked through a full playthrough to get some info, specifically whether Sayori knows about the cupcakes or not, and I realized that WOW. The protagonist is a real dick. I knew he wasn’t the happy go lucky fun type but JESUS CHRIST! I’m not even sure if I’m this bad in real life, and I’m a real asshole…

But I digress. I found that she did know beforehand, so I put in the “ace up her sleeve” bit to end this chapter off. After listening to the Alarm Clock ditty that is the first song for a bit.

Chapter 2:

I originally was going to start this off with MC waking up on the second day, but I thought that starting off with Monika and the creation of the special notebooks made more sense. I’m surprised that the whole “characters jumping as you select them” had not really been explored yet. Maybe that’s because it railroads it too much, but whatever.

Are swans graceful? I dunno, but I used it anyway. Better than the falcon I originally thought of.

I almost tried to deliberately avoid using the word “reality” but eventually I said fuck it and let it in. Can’t avoid tropes forever. Honestly, I don’t have any real concept of “character development”, I just write what feels right. So what is Monika exactly? A plot device. But hey, maybe I just happened to accidentally write something good, who knows.

Time for the wakeup scene. I decided to make Benji’s dad the one concerned about his future, because it is always the mom in these kind of things. Figure I’d spice it up.

If you know the reasoning behind the green coloring of the word “reverie”, write a comment. And make sure to set counter factor to 1 for all your ROMs if you haven’t already. It helps, trust me.

I made MC a bit less of a dick, and you can guess why. I also moved the cupcakes bit to here instead of after the day, so he would think about it during the day. And I like cupcakes.

The fight club joke was just begging to be made, so there it is. I hope you like it, because that’s probably the last time I surrender myself like that.

Yeah, I kinda just left out the whole Yuri tea thing. Oh well. This fic isn’t gonna be canon-compliant for too much longer anyway. That whole club interaction was surprisingly easy to write. Maybe it’s the PC-98 Touhou music I was listening to…

I took the colors from the Twitter post by the actual character designer about the hair colors. They are:

Monika: #D29083

Yuri: #6c4681

Sayori: #f1ad9d

Natsuki: #ffbbc3

Yuri’s was technically someone else’s idea, but it looked fine so I used it.


End file.
